Although Opera 9 was only released on 20 June, the browser company is already looking forward to the release of version 10, and is providing a preview of its plans for the next incarnation.
No launch date for the next version has as yet been set, but the company has great plans for it, including making the browser work on and across any platform (a continuation of its work to make Opera 9 compatible with different platforms such as Nintendo DS games consoles), building on Opera's use of small Web applications called Widgets (HTML and JavaScript Web applications that run outside of the browser) and positioning the browser to compete with Microsoft's forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 head on.
"We want to enable Opera 10 to work on any device --- mobile, desktop, games consoles. We want to find ways to tie things in much better. That's something we do that Microsoft fundamentally can't," said Thomas Ford, public relations manager for desktop Opera software.
The company has also unveiled plans to encourage developers to use Opera as a Web development platform, using open standards. To this end, the company is working on a range of developer tools.
Opera 9 has already been a significant success, with 700,000 downloads on the first day of release.